


Alone at the Counter - Library AU

by 2MusicLover2



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Fluff, Libraries, Library AU, M/M, Simon can’t get his words out, SnowBaz, classic literature, flustered simon, librarian Simon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-22 21:16:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2MusicLover2/pseuds/2MusicLover2
Summary: Every day at 2:40pm a man comes into the library that Simon just can’t take his eyes off of.





	Alone at the Counter - Library AU

My surroundings blur as I spin around in the chair, bored out of my mind as no one has come to check out a book in over an hour. I really wish I had at least one of my coworkers with me to talk to, but Penny went on her lunch not long ago and Agatha had left me a note when I came in saying “ _Hey Simon, I’m shelf weeding, don’t bother me_ ”. Even all of the shelvers are off in the stacks somewhere, leaving me all alone behind the circulation counter.

So I keep spinning.

And then someone clears their throat. I stop my chair mid spin only to realize I’m facing the opposite direction, so I slowly spin to face the counter. There stands a man with silk-like black hair and quite possibly the palest skin I have ever seen. His features, which look sharp enough to cut someone, are settled in an annoyed expression.

“You done there, or should I come back later?” he asks.

I shake my head, my entire face heating up in embarrassment. “No, sorry, I was just… how may I help you?”

In reply, the man sets down a heavy looking stack of books on the counter.

“Do you have a card?” I ask and he slaps the piece of plastic down on top of the books. I can feel him watching me as I scan his card and hand it back to him before scanning the books one by one. Biology book, music theory book, economics book,  _ Pride and Prejudice _ , calculus book, wait what?  _ Pride and _ bloody  _ Prejudice _ ? What the fuck? I look up at the man and hold up the romance novel, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” he asks in a bored tone.

I huff out a laugh. “ _ Pride and Prejudice _ ?”

“It’s classic literature,” he states.

“Uh huh,” I say, continuing to laugh as I finish checking out the books to him. “Have a nice day.”

When he leaves, I go back to spinning in my chair.

* * *

The next time he comes in I’m not making a fool of myself. No, I’m just staring off into space, bored and alone again. But when he drops the books in front of me, I lose my cool and jump. Then, because I’m just that coordinated, I fall and land on my arse.

I slowly stand again, groaning from the mixture of pain and embarrassment, to see him giving me the same look he did a week ago when he came in.

“Check these back in,” he says, then walks off without waiting for an answer.

With a roll of my eyes, I start doing what he said. When I get to  _ Pride and Prejudice _ , I open it, curious. It’s not like I have anything else to do, so I start to read. I don’t get very far before the man comes back with another stack of books, all the same subjects, except this time with  _ Dracula _ in place of  _ Pride and Prejudice _ .

“From romance to vampires? That’s an interesting change,” I point out.

“They’re both classics and  _ Dracula _ does have some minor romance,” he says in that same bored tone as before, then he takes the books and leaves without a glance back.

I roll my eyes. “Have a nice day,” I tell the glass door as it shuts.

I pick  _ Pride and Prejudice _ up again and continue reading.

* * *

“Someone asked for you,” Penny says as soon as I step inside the library.

“Huh?” I ask, confused both by the greeting and the fact that someone asked for me. “Who? What’d they say?”

Penny gives me one of her all-knowing smiles. “Oh, just this gorgeous looking guy, black hair, grey eyes, wanting to know where the hot blonde boy was,” she teases, her dark brown eyes glittering.

I scoff. “Yeah, no. What’d he really say?”

“He walked in with a giant stack of books and when he saw me he stopped dead in his tracks then asked ‘where’s the annoying blonde boy?’ I told him you were on lunch and that you’d be back soon and he took his books over to that table and has been staring at the door ever since then, so now that he’s walking over here I’ll leave you to it.”

“No! Penny, don’t leave me!” I plead, but it’s too late and Penny has left me alone with the man who drops his books from last week on the counter in front of me. “You waited for me?” I ask skeptically, moving my gaze from the books up to his face.

“I enjoy witnessing your idiocy. It somehow brightens my day just a little.”

With a roll of my eyes, I start checking his books back in and he gives me a little smirk before walking off to go find some more books for this week. Picking up the copy of  _ Dracula _ he had checked out, I see that it is filled with sticky notes; they’re on every page and some pages have multiple, all with the same elegant handwriting. I dig in my pocket for my own library card and check the book out to myself. I’m just about to open it back up and start reading when the man comes back with a whole new stack of books. I slam  _ Dracula _ shut and stuff it under the counter where he can’t see it.

“What piece of fine literature have you decided on this week, sir?” I ask in a posh accent. He picks up one of the books and shows me the cover:  _ Moby-Dick _ . “Excellent choice, sir, excellent choice.”

He raises an eyebrow incredulously. “You done there?”

I give him a faux offended look. “Whatever do you mean, sir?”

“Just check out the bloody books,” he scowls.

Begrudgingly, I scan each book, my eyes never leaving his face and his never leaving mine. At first, I was just glaring at him jokingly, but now I’ve made it a little game to see who cracks first. We both win. He backs out of the front door, both of us still glaring at each other until he backs around the corner of the building.

* * *

That night I slide into my bed and open the copy of  _ Dracula _ filled with sticky notes. The very first page in the book has a single sticky note that simply reads “ _ Hope you enjoy -Baz _ ”.

I stay up all night reading the book and all of the annotations carefully written out on the sticky notes. I peel each sticky note off the pages and put them in my nightstand, each one with another sticky note attached to it displaying my response to the note.

* * *

I came into work early and have been on edge since. Every time the door opens I stand up from the office chair I originally intended to spin in, but had only been sitting in stiffly. It’s three hours into my shift and four hours into me being there when the door finally opens and I stand up to see the person I want to.

“Baz,” I say, not bothering to make it a question. The hint of a blush creeps into his cheeks and I smile, but before I can say anything else, he sets his books down and walks into the stacks.

Quickly, before even checking the books back in, I grab a sticky note from one of the desks back by the offices and scribble out a note on it.

_ Thanks, I really appreciated the notes -Simon _

I then make sure to check  _ Moby-Dick _ back in last and when I see it is filled with sticky notes, I check it out to myself and start reading.

Later, when Baz comes back, he only has one book to check out:  _ Lord of the Flies _ . When I stick the receipt in the book, I include the sticky note, making sure he doesn’t see me put it in.

* * *

And that’s how we start having conversations with each other in the books. The very first page in every book has a note from him to me and my response is stuck to his receipt. At first, it was just simple conversations about the books.  _ Lord of the Flies _ was handed to me with a note reading “ _ This one seems more your style than the others -Baz _ ”, and the following receipt for  _ Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hyde _ said “ _ I’ve been meaning to read  _ Lord of the Flies  _ but haven’t gotten a chance yet. Should be interesting -Simon _ ”.

Eventually, topics started to stray from the books he chose for us and towards other, normally stranger, matters. In  _ Jane Eyre _ , we were somehow on the topic of Viking’s funerals, Baz writing “ _ I’ve always found it interesting that the Vikings honored their dead by burning them on boats _ ” and me responding with “ _ It made sense, I mean, they did spend a lot of time at sea and it’s kind of like being cremated, just, you know, at sea _ ”.

Four months after he had started coming in, I found myself growing to enjoy Wednesdays at 2:40 pm, getting a pad of sticky notes out and ready for when he came in and gave me the book he had read last. By now, we were even having conversations with each other standing there while I checked his next book out to him.

So here I am, frantically scribbling down something on a sticky note and then crumpling it up and throwing it on the floor to pick up later. Our notes to each other and even our conversations had started to get a little flirty and I planned on asking him out, but I just can’t seem to figure out the right words. I throw my last sticky note on the floor and let out a frustrated noise, fisting my hands in my hair.

“You good there, Snow?” I hear Baz ask and I snap my head up to look at him, my entire face starting to feel warmer.

“Uh, yeah, I just… hi.” I manage to get out eventually. I inwardly cringe at how breathless I sound.

He raises an eyebrow. “Hi.”

For a moment, we just stand there staring at each other before he finally looks down at the book in his hands and then holds it out to me. “Our next book,” he says.

Instead of taking it, I look back and forth between his face and the title. After about the tenth time of my eyes landing on his face, I just blurt out what I’m thinking in a moment of confidence I didn’t know was possible for me. “Wanna get some coffee?” When he doesn’t answer after what’s probably only two seconds, I blush even harder than before and start tripping over my words to fix it. “Or not, I mean, we don’t really have to, I just thought- but it was wrong of me to assume-”

“Simon,” Baz cuts me off. “I would love to go on a date with you.”

I sigh in relief. “Cool. That’s cool. Good. Uh… yeah. Wanna just…? We could now? Like, get some coffee and talk about that book. Or something else. I don’t know.”

“Don’t you still have to work?” he laughs, clearly amused by my inability to form complete thoughts, and my insides burst at the sound.

“I could get Penny to cover for me,” I answer, somehow gaining back my confidence with that one sentence.

He seems to think it over for a second before nodding his head. “Okay. Let’s go get some coffee.”


End file.
